


Swords and.... arrows???

by slaughtermom



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, I've had the idea of Aveline's worst case scenario in my head for a long time, and I've always wanted to explore what she would do after she left Kirkwall, have shield will protect princes, so came this idea of her reluctantly deciding that protecting Sebastian is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-06-25 00:02:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19734328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slaughtermom/pseuds/slaughtermom
Summary: When life gives you lemons, you get the Prince of Starkhaven drunk and decide it's your job to keep him safe despite himself.





	1. Chapter 1

The fire crackled, the red sparks a sharp contrast to the green that still tinted the sky around Kirkwall. Aveline stretched her legs out, simple leather leggings a replacement for the steel of her office… interim office. She had never been made Guard Captain officially. That investigation into Jeven fizzling out with his sudden disappearance and a promotion she’d done nothing to earn.

It would have been better had she taken King Alistair up on his offer. Hawke hadn’t needed her. He’d made that abundantly clear with a raised staff and maleficar at his back. What was it Wesley said on those cliffs above Lothering? A mage being suspect. And hadn’t he been right, her brave dead Templar. Yet she chased the champion across the Waking Sea as if he’d be a family found in place of the one she’d lost despite his warnings.

Foolish foolish girl.

When the shadow danced between tree branches just outside the circle of light from her campfire, Aveline was unsurprised. She was hardly the only rat to flee a sinking ship.

It was a small sound, the twang of a bow being pulled. That creak of wood and stretch of string. Had bandits already seized upon the opportunity of a City State in chaos? Green eyes squinted into the darkness. She had Wesley’s shield on her back, though little good it did there. Aveline forced herself still, hands lax in her lap.

“Where is he?” Voiced scratched raw, white armor gone grey with soot from the city, Sebastian stepped slowly into the firelight. His hands shook on the bow, raw and weeping wounds on his fingers. Had he dug through the rubble of the Chantry? “Where’s that murderer? Where’s Hawke?”

Laughter was hardly the response warranted, though it bubbled up her throat and sat thickly on the tongue. Was she hysterical? Had the thinnest shreds of sanity snapped with the ludicrousness of Starkhaven’s Prince looking like he’d been dragged backwards through a chimney.

Lax hand gestured towards the burning city.

“I would suppose they’re burning down the rest of Kirkwall, Prince.”

His brows drew together, confusion breaking through vengeance long enough for him to lower the bow. “Guard Captain?”

“Aveline,” the hysterical laughter was back. Choking snorts that sounded perilously close to sobs. “I resigned.” His face was a wonder. Clicks of expression as his mind filled in the blanks. He’d have to stop that when he took back his throne. Nobles would eat him alive.

Sebastian felt as if his strings had been cut. He’d had a hope, fleeting as it was, that where Aveline was – Hawke wasn’t far away and with the Champion, his apostate lover. The murderer. He could end it, end the entire sordid affair and put Elthina to rest while her bones were still warm. He sank to his haunches, too lost in his stupor to ask permission to share the fire or apologize for threatening her.

Aveline dug at her side pulling out a flask and tossing it over, a satisfied expression crossing her face when he snagged it out of the air in reflex. 

“Drink Prince. It’ll help.”

He stared at the flask as if he’d never seen one before, blunted nails thumbing over the top before unscrewing it and taking deep drag. He coughed at the burn and took another deep drink.

“Why did you leave?”

This was perhaps the longest conversation they’d had. Aveline didn’t care for the Starkhaven Prince, hadn’t since Hawke was drug into his quest for vengeance. He’d done nothing to redeem himself since then. Pretty words were just that, fleeting and gone in the first stiff breeze. She dropped her gaze to her hands, green eyes staring at the badly healed break of her pointer finger. How had she gotten that again? Fighting doglords? No it had been Carta, she remembered their peculiar knives. Small curved blades that flitted between steel gauntlets and sheared bone.

“I won’t raise my blade against Hawke.” It was a hard confession. “He saved my life in Ferelden and I… I couldn’t do the same for Leandra. I won’t fight with him and I can’t fight against him.” Lips twisted in a sardonic grin. “So I left.”

Sebastian had a pensive look on his face, as if the Prince was figuring out some great mystery. “And what of Anders? Would you raise your blade against the maleficar?”

Aveline thought of Welsey’s shield, the good solid weight of it against her back. She thought of the lives the Darktown Healer had saved and the lives he’d taken in a single act of destruction. She was no vengeful spirit to strike down with a flaming sword. She stopped burglars and… “I would have him face the full weight of the law. If he fought me, I’d have no choice but to kill him for the safety of the public.”

There was red underneath soot. Kirkwall’s ash a poor opponent for Andal’s whiskey. The Prince was grieving, angry, and on his way to being completely soused.

“What of me?”

Her brows drew together. “Draw a blade against you Prince?”

“For me, would you fight for me Guard Capt- Aveline?”

\---

The day broke with rain. Big drops that smelled like salt and smoke. The fire had long gone cold and kicked to not smoke up the small campsite. It was impossible to know what was happening in the city at this distance. Had the Knight Commander prevailed? Her Rite of Annulment fulfilled and with it the Champion dead? Aveline felt a pang in her chest, a hard thump under her breastbone at the thought of Hawke and those foolish friends that followed him. Varric, Merrill, Fenris… even that bastard Carver. All gone for the stubbornness of the Champion.

Sebastian’s groan cut through her thoughts. He’d slept the sleep of the drunk, limbs akimbo and open mouthed snoring. She didn’t envy his head, but pitied enough to toss a water skin in his lap. A secret pleasure at his grunt of discomfort. He was an idiot. A foolish, foppish child of a man. She couldn’t very well let him get himself killed.

“Get up Prince. If you plan to take back your home, we best get on with it.”

Bloodshot eyes looked up from under dirty hair as he rolled to his hands and knees and began the arduous process of standing upright. “We?”

Her brow raised. “I’m Ferelden. We take care of lost puppies.”

His answering snort sounded like paper tearing as he teetered one way then the other before equilibrium and sheer stubbornness kept him still. Dirty armor, a filthy face and breath akin to the Bone Pit dragon. Aveline pressed her lips together. Keeping Sebastian alive was hardly the grand calling her father had wished for her. She was no Chevalier and he was certainly no retainer. Still… still it was a purpose and she desperately needed one.

“Well Prince, will you let me be your shield?”

Sebastian rubbed his hands roughly across his face. He was grieving, even more so than when he heard about the death of his family. Was that because Elthina had loved him? Been a mother his own refused to be? Would the people in his life ever stop dying?

Aveline repeated her question. Green eyes piercing. She was formidable. Crossed arms over studded leather. His goal wasn’t easy. His cousin had rooted himself on the throne and doubtful would be willing to relinquish the title to its rightful holder.

“I don’t,” he cleared his throat and immediately regretted it. Just what had she given him to drink last night? “It isn’t a task to take lightly.”

He didn’t expect her to move quickly, light on her feet in a way she never was in full armor. Sword pulled, its dull sheen showing care and use. She knelt, balancing the blade on her knee.

“I Aveline Vallen of Ferelden, daughter of Benoit Du Lac pledge my services to you Prince Sebastian Vael. My sword and shield will be raised in your protection from this day until…” she pressed her lips together, unwilling to follow the script of a Chevalier completely. “…until you’ve no longer in need of it. This I swear.”

It was only something he’d seen his father do when young nobles had pledged themselves to Starkhaven. Then it was all pomp and ceremony and empty promises. After all, those same young noble knights had stood aside as his family was slaughtered. But this didn’t feel like that. Aveline wasn’t a noble. She wasn’t her namesake, but she was here with clear eyes and words free of simpering.

He placed his hand over the naked blade on her knee. “Will you make a promise to me Aveline Vallen? Promise you won’t die. Promise me you’ll protect me and stay alive.”

There were memories in his eyes. Aveline could see the shadow of them pass across his pupils. They were a pair in that way. Living on even when everyone around them dies.

“I’m very hard to kill Prince, and I don’t plan on dying now.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.”   
> ― Scott Lynch

He was fascinated by her hands. Sebastian had his fair share of breaks and cuts. Bow training and young life of climbing in and out of windows, mostly in save for when his paramour of the night’s husband came home and he needed a hasty exit. It was a past he wasn’t proud of, how could anyone be proud of a life devoid of the Maker and saturated in baselessness. But none of it compared to the Guard Captain turned personal bodyguard. Her hands were pale, even paler than her face and covered in enough freckles to look as if she’d splattered dirt across them. The pointer finger on her shield hand had a ring of scar tissue as if someone had done their upmost to take it off entirely, but more peculiar were the fingers on her right hand. Two of them twisted with a break healed wrongly. It was a wonder she could bend them at all… but then again this was Aveline. She wouldn’t let something as silly as a mangled hand stop her from her duty.

“This noble ally of yours,” Aveline spoke like she did everything else. Bluntly. “He’s trustworthy?”

Sebastian’s back straightened, a royal grace as innate as breathing overtaking him when he spoke of his plans for Starkhaven. “He’s a country Baron who squired under my grandfather. I wrote to him often during my time in the Chantry.” A dark look overcame his features. “He’s the one who told me what happened to my family, came all the way to Kirkwall so I didn’t have to mourn alone. He’s a good man.”

Aveline’s shoulders shifted under studded leather. She would have preferred to recon Starkhaven from a commoner’s point of view. Talk to the people who worked its famed golden fields and work their way up through maids and valets to get the better idea of the state of nobility and how the majority felt about the sitting Prince of Starkhaven. A country Baron on the border would hardly – but then again Sebastian was grieving still. She didn’t comment on his red rimmed eyes or muttered prayers for a soul’s peace. He needed a soft place to land, if a manor in the country gave that to him, who was she to argue against?

“As you say Prince.”

* * *

It was an oddity, Aveline thought. Two days into their journey without even a tavern to for a meal they didn’t have to cook themselves and the Prince’s armor was spotless. Gleaming even. It confounded her. How was he managing to stay so clean? Was this something the Chantry taught? If so she should have sent her guards ages ago. Perhaps then they could make it through a patrol without looking like they rolled instead of walked.

The thought jarred her. She didn’t have guards anymore. The life she tried to build in Kirkwall was gone. Her failure. Jeven escaping, even her fleeting feelings for Guardsman Donnic, lost just as everything else in her life had been. Was this truly her last chance then? A petulant Prince in yet another foreign place. If she failed here…

No, no she wouldn’t. Sebastian would have his seat back, and she’d have the knowledge that finally, finally she’d been able to protect someone.

“There’s a village at the base of the mountain pass. We’ll get supplies there and rest before crossing the Vinmarks.” Aveline sniffed, already picturing a hot meal and soft bed. She had the stamina to sleep rough, but she didn’t have to enjoy it. “You’ll have to forgo your armor in the mountain’s prince. I can hardly protect you if I can’t see you for the snow.”

Sebastian laughed despite himself. “I’ll take your word for it.”

* * *

The inn was single story, a ramshackle thing seemingly added to one room at a time. Greyed bowed wood slowly giving way to white oak so new, the brush of sawdust remained between Kirkwall forged nails. It was crammed cheek to jowl with the one tavern the town boasted. Not a Hanged Man by any means, but that was all for the better. Aveline hardly wanted to start a trip across the Vinmarks with the trots.

Fingers dug into a piping hot roll, tearing it in half to expose the whorls of air pockets brought by a good rise. Aveline handed half to Sebastian across the table before taking advantage of the little crock of butter left by the waitress. The guard had spoiled her. Two days on the road eating nothing but spit roasted game and potatoes cooked in ash had been a miserable experience.

“I believe,” Sebastian said companion-ly. “We’re being watched.”

She grunted affirmation. They’d been under scrutiny since walking into town, though this was more pointed than simple curiosity of town folk. There was menace here. Some dark foreboding that promised violence. The only question left was… were they after the Prince or her?

Aveline didn’t have to wait for answer long. The jangle of a badly sheaved sword in scabbard and the smell of wale and unwashed body sidled up to their table, leaning heavy on the edge of it. She narrowed her eyes. Her then. No noble would hire someone so obviously idiotic for an assassination.

“It is you, Miss Captain of the Guard.”

Not a dwarf, so not Coterie or Carta. The accent was Ferelden, though that hardly meant he was one of the Doglords chased out of Lowtown. A simple thug? No, not with the two companions making their way through the tavern with daggers curled against their forearms.

“If you were looking for a fight with the city guard, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. I resigned.”

“Aveline,” Sebastian questioned. His lilting voice tinged with the barest hint of worry.

“That so. Guessing that means when we kill you no one will – ”

The rest of the Ferelden’s words were lost in a flurry of motion. The hand Aveline placed under the table heaving up to tilt the entire thing into a makeshift barrier or what would be a barrier had she not kept going, throwing it and by proxy herself on top of him with a sickening crunch of some bone or another broken.

Aveline wasted no time rolling to her feet and pulling steel to face the other two. She lacked her shield; it sat with the rest of their supplies in the inn. Though by the looks of things, it hardly mattered what weapons she had or hadn’t. Her attackers were sloppy, banging into each other in their haste to attack and giving her the opening she needed.

It was over as quick as it began. One dead. One bloodied nose to navel and howling with it, and the third… Aveline put her foot on the upended table providing steady pressure until she was sure she had the man’s undivided attention.

“Who are you?”

He whimpered.

She pressed harder and repeated her question.

“I can answer that.” The tavern keeper spoke with a Cumberland accent. His tones blander than the Kirkwall’s and with none of Starkhaven’s musicality.

* * *

“So you saved town under siege Guard Captain.”

Aveline beetled her brows at him. “A town under siege by idiots.”

Sebastian chuckled as he leaned back in, stretching until the chair tilted from four legs to two. Doglords, those Ferelden lost that fell to crime out of desperation or depravity. He remembered vaguely their run in the streets of Lowtown, bits of conversation between Aveline and the Champion about what a shame it was to waste good dogs on bad deeds. It was one of the few time he remembered the pair of them agreeing on something.

“Idiots aye, but you’ve gotten goodwill and a reward as well.”

Aveline snorted. “I’ll take it.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”   
> ― Lemony Snicket

The little town’s Chantry felt like home. The smell incense, the relief of Andraste – face turned up and smiling as if she was caught mid-conversation. It was a stark contrast to the warrior statue in Kirkwall, with its sword and shield held in readiness. This was the face of a wife, soft expression and lilted lips. A sort of blasphemy to show her so soft, so human.

But then again, hadn’t she been? An Almarri barbarian who raised a family before she ever raised an army. Was this the Andraste Grand Cleric Elthina was with now? Was she even now talking about her silly children with the bride of the Maker, looking out from the Fade and… and… Sebastian felt a tightness in his chest like the band of a barrel forcing his ribs in.

He knew Elthina wouldn’t approve of the vengeance in his heart. He knew she would tell him to forgive, to let the Maker judge but hadn’t the Maker already judged, hadn’t he let this hap-

No, no he couldn’t think like that. His faith was all he had left. The maleficar had taken everything else.

* * *

Safe or as safe as someone could be in the Free Marches, Aveline left Sebastian to his prayers at the Chantry… prayers and what little gleans of information he could gather from the sisters and Templars there, while she went back to their little rented room in the inn. Dagger, short sword, shield, and her old studded tabard laid out Aveline went piece by piece checking metal for the start of rust, honing edges and brushing a week’s travel from her armor.

A soothing task. The slink of whetstone against steel, the scrape of horsehair against armor. Monotonous. It gave her time to think. Three days over the Vinmarks. Another two to the border of Starkhaven and the Baron that the Prince trusted. Then… then politics. A dirty business at the best of times.

It was a strange thing. She hadn’t thought of her father as more than a specter in years. Whatever memories she had of him before, blighted out by the Wasting and those last few weeks in the ward. But he’d been a Chevalier. Politics had been his business, knowing when to use words and when to use actions. All for the service of his benefactor. Had he had these doubts in his ability? Aveline was sure he had to if not during his service, certainly after when he fled Orlais with his daughter.

She wasn’t him. Politics were the Prince’s problem. She just had to keep him safe. That was enough of a purpose. It had to be.

Pulled from her musings, green eyes cut sharply to the sound of steps outside the door. Fingers grasping the hilt of her sword in readiness, she waited. 

“Nothing.” The Prince spoke in lieu of greeting as he opened the door. There was a slump to his shoulders and lines carved deep around blue eyes. It was as if he aged a decade in the week they’d bene on the road. “There were no Templars at the Chantry. I talked to a Sister Floria after Vespers. She said they’d been called to Kirkwall over a month ago by Knight Commander Meredith. There’s been no news since.” His mouth pulled into a grimace.

“I didn’t tell her of the Chantry explosion or of Grand Cleric Elthi-” Sebastian paused breath turning ragged and thick with emotion. “We should leave before that news reaches here.”

It felt as if someone else had taken control of her body, some outside force moving muscles and stretching ligaments. Aveline pushed back from the table, weapons and armor she wore like a second skin abandoned, that familiar scent linseed oil and steel. Steps gaited like a newborn foal, she crossed the room to him.

Her arms were lean. Knotted muscle taunt under pale skin, they wrapped tightly around him. Pressed into curve of her neck, Sebastian could feel the steady beat of her pulse against his nose. She smelled of sweat and steel and wood smoke. A far cry from the incense of the Chantry or perfumed aromas of noblewomen.

Her embrace wasn’t comfortable. Bony shoulder pressed against his ear, the feel of scar tissue from some fight or another rough against his cheek. His lower back ached in protest until he bent his knees slightly to accommodate the difference in their height. And yet… yet Sebastian couldn’t remember the last time someone hugged him. His mother must have when he was a child, his older brothers even. No it was his grandfather. The night before he ran away for that last time. Just a hand clasp to his shoulder and nod of affection.

Aveline shut her eyes, already berating herself for foolish actions. Sebastian was hardly a friend, this wasn’t Merrill missing home or even those old comrades from Cailan’s glorious army. It wasn’t her place to give comfort, not when she was using him to give her life purpose.

But he was grieving and she knew, deep down in the viscera of herself what it felt like to lose those closest to you. 

“You’re allowed to mourn Prince. Rage, whimper, cry. There’s no shame in it.”

Like a marionette with its strings cut, Sebastian sank to the floor pulling her with him. Face firmly tucked against her, Aveline could feel the wetness of his silent tears soak into the collar of her shirt. Tentative, shaking hands groped at her back, finding purchase on either side of her spine as Grand Cleric Elthina’s son grieved the loss of his mother.

* * *

Aveline finished cleaning her gear in lamplight. The only sounds in the room from the movement of her hands and the quiet crackling of the fire behind her. There was an awkwardness in the room, some quiet sense of a step taken that neither one could easily stumble back from. Though Sebastian had given it his best effort, disentangling from her as soon as his tears stopped and across the room to stare out into the darkness of night through badly glazed glass.

“You have a lot of experience,” Sebastian cleared his throat, eyes glancing her direction before firmly looking out the window again. “You seem to have a lot of experience with… with this sort of thing Guard Captain.”

Lips quirked in a semblance of humor. Aveline assumed their scant conversations over ten years of following Hawke was enough to get the measure of each other. He was a fool; most nobles were – but dangerous with it. He took Hawke into danger and that was something she could never forgive. Or at least that had been something she could never forgive.

But truly they knew nothing of each other.

“I was a soldier Prince.”

His brow furrowed. “That’s not what I – ”

“I know it’s not.”

Aveline huffed, forcing air sharply through her throat. “You should get some sleep Prince. We’ll be leaving tomorrow.” 


End file.
